120 A CENTURY OF SCIENCE 



Canadian paleontology/' Sir William Dawson, who 

 developed independently, was active in all branches of 

 the science and did much to unravel the geology of 

 eastern Canada. No organism has been more discussed 

 and more often rejected and accepted as a fossil than his 

 "dawn animal of Canada," Eozoon canadense, first 

 described in 1865. His son, George M. Dawson, was one 

 of the directors of the Geological Survey of Canada. 

 Finally the extensive paleontology of the Cambrian of 

 Canada was worked out by another self-made paleontolo- 

 gist, G. F. Matthew. 



Paleobotany. American paleobotany was developed 

 during this, the fourth period, through the state and 

 national surveys, first in Leo Lesquereux, a Swiss stu- 

 dent induced by Agassiz to come to America, and in J. S. 

 Newberry. The second generation of paleobotanists is 

 represented by Lester F. Ward and W. N. Fontaine, 

 and the third generation, the present workers, includes 

 F. H. Knowlton, David White, Arthur Hollick, and E. W. 

 Berry. A new line of paleobotanical work, the histology 

 of woody but pseudomorphous remains, has been devel- 

 oped by G. R. Wieland. 



The grander results of the study of paleontology dur- 

 ing the evolutionary period may be summed up with the 

 conclusions of Marsh : 



"One of the main characteristics of this epoch is the belief 

 that all life, living and extinct, has been evolved from simple 

 forms. Another prominent feature is the accepted fact of the 

 great antiquity of the human race. These are quite sufficient 

 to distinguish this period sharply from those that preceded it. 



Charles Darwin 's work at once aroused attention, and brought 

 about in scientific thought a revolution which "has influenced 

 paleontology as extensively as any other department of science 

 . . . In the [previous period] species were represented inde- 

 pendently by parallel lines; in the present period, they are 

 indicated by dependent, branching lines. The former was the 

 analytic, the latter is the synthetic period." 



Synthetic Period. What is to be the next trend in 

 paleontology? Clearly it is to be the Synthetic period, 

 one that Marsh in 1879 indicated in these words: "But 

 if we are permitted to continue in imagination the rap- 

 idly converging lines of research pursued to-day, they 



